A Girl After His Own Heart
by raptorsqquad
Summary: In the heady rush of emotions that is Senior Prom night, Lydia and Stiles finally do something they've been meaning to do for years. But this sets off a series of events which will lead Stiles to cross the Atlantic Ocean five years later with nothing but a London address to find the girl he loves, who has been hiding a huge secret.
1. Prologue

On the final day of his final year at Beacon Hills High School, Stiles Stilinski gets his wish. And no, not the one to do with Coach and a flock of angry geese. The one to do with the strawberry blonde who had placed her hand on his heart and left an imprint there forever.

It's a fumble of feelings and emotions, like someone has placed them in a washing machine and set it to fast spin. A stolen moment in the middle of the Senior prom, when Lydia places her hand on his back and says that dancing was never her thing anyway, in a voice that sets every single hair on his body to alert mode. They hadn't even come together. But Lydia had other ideas, and Stiles was ready to go with it.

The empty classroom had so many memories imprinted on it; Scott digging claws into his own hands to keep himself from transforming, a maths test where Stiles ended up doodling Lydia's name on the back of the sheet over and over again. But now one last memory, just in time. A giggle as Lydia pushes him against the wall, appraises him for one second before pressing her lips against his. There's a moment of terror when Stiles thinks she must be drunk and he's going to have to be moral, but her breath smells of nothing but the strawberry-flavoured lip gloss she always wears. So he kisses her back with the desperation of a boy who has been waiting all his adolescent life to do this, and then some.

When she pulls away countless seconds later, she has the same smug look she wears when she beats him at Monopoly (every damn time). He wears the look of a boy trying to determine if he's dreaming or not and, for once, he doesn't care about waking up from this one.

"What..." He tries. "How..."

Lydia comes to his rescue as one hand trails up his arm, coming to rest around his neck. "You didn't think I'd let you graduate without a goodbye kiss did you?" she asks, one eyebrow raising at a perfect angle of supreme smugness.

"I wasn't expecting it, no. I mean...I thought..." Stiles grits his teeth, finding his own lack of language skills hugely frustrating.

She grins, taking his hand and pulling him over to sit on a desk. She sits beside him, plaits there fingers together. "Stiles, we've been building up to this for weeks and you know it."

She's right. Ever since Stiles and Malia went for friends rather than partners, the dynamic had shifted. Slowly but gradually, in little baby steps. Stiles had started putting a kiss at the end of their texts about homework. Lydia had returned them. Stiles had placed his hand closer to hers when they sat next to each other at lunch, and Lydia had closed the gap even more. Stiles started spending time on the weekends with her without bringing homework or supernatural related puzzles to solve. Lydia had stopped bringing her own cardigans round for their Thursday night study sessions and had found his hoodies instead.

This acceptance of the facts obviously shows on his face because Lydia rests her chin on his shoulder and purses those enchanting lips of hers. "So, are we going to just sit here reminiscing or...?" she trails off and that delicate pause is enough to cause Stiles to let out a small moan as if he's desperately trying to find words but is coming up completely blank.

They hit the classroom floor moments later, a tangle of limbs and built up feelings. Stiles' hand entangled in her hair, Lydia's hand diving under his shirt to explore skin that she's found herself imagining at night. Hearts skip and race and duck and dive, unable to fathom quite what they're feeling right now.

Until, in a blink of an eye, it's over. Sweat glistens on their skin, Lydia's painstakingly selected prom dress lies in a crumpled heap and her head rests in the crook of his collar bone. They can hear the real world creeping back to claim them; the thud of the prom's DJ, the titter of some other pair of teenagers coming together, the gentle pattering of a summer rainstorm. But they don't return just yet, far too content between the lines of desks and with the smell of Lydia's perfume intermingling with musty textbooks.

A week later, Lydia's lipgloss resting almost comfortably beneath the lobe of his ear, Stiles gets the letter he's been waiting for, but also dreading. A scholarship for the school he's been dreaming of, the one that he knows will get him on the path to the FBI. The one that his father made him apply to because there was nobody else who could crack crimes like a Stilinski could. Especially a Stilinski like Stiles.

He's dreading it because it is on the other side of the country. He's dreading it because he knows he'll be leaving her, and because he hasn't even told her yet. He's dreading it because he knows she'll make him go, because it's what is best and even though she'll be furious about that fact, she'll have to face it. He has to go.

Of course, he's right. He's very rarely wrong when it comes to Lydia Martin. She gives him a hard look and a mouthful of venom for not telling her, then oversees him confirming it, arms crossed over her lacrosse sweater covered chest, tears pulled right back from the corners of her eyes. She wants to be happy for him, and refuses to let him see how sad this makes her.

And that's how the problem starts. Because even Lydia Martin can't keep that much sadness inside and soon it begins to fester, begins to grow furry patches of mould and as the days until he leaves tick by, things start to go wrong. She can't see him, because it hurts too much, so she makes excuses. Silly excuses instead of telling him the truth. Then he gets cross, frustrated. _I've only got five days left with you and you want to spend it shopping for shoes?_ He keeps pushing, keeps sniping and then finally she can't take it anymore and yells at him that he's smothering her, that this isn't working, that a few nights wrapped together does not make her his damn wife. It's volcanic, plate-shifting stuff. Yelling at each other across Stiles' bedroom, Lydia's cheeks red and damp with frustrated tears.

Hateful untruths fly across the space. I never wanted to go out with you. It was just one night. You're too clingy. You lied to me. I never realised what a cold heart you had, Lydia Martin. At some point she storms out, pushes past the worried Sheriff and out the door, slamming it behind her.

And then, in the wreckage of a relationship that tried to fly before its wings had grown in, he has to leave. Lydia watches the planes drawing cloud lines across the sky and wonders which one holds her heart in the scruffy suitcase of the bastard boy who stole it.

Two days later, the throwing up starts. 7:35am every morning like clockwork. On the fourth day, she sits in the mall toilets and stares at the positive sign grinning up at her from a little white stick of plastic. Who would have known such a small, flimsy item could hold her future for ransom.

She knows who it belongs to, knows they took a risk in the heady rush of prom night. But Lydia Martin is a stubborn soul and she won't call him.

In fact, she doesn't call him through thousands of miles of travel, hours spent screaming in an unfamiliar hospital room on the other side of the Atlantic and five years of being a mother.

But Stiles Stilinski is a stubborn soul and, five years later, he goes to find the girl who put his heart in her pocket and disappeared into the creases of the map.


	2. Chapter One

London Heathrow Airport arrivals hall is as busy as ever. Tourists mill around the exit, trying to spot their names written on the countless taxi driver placards, while seasoned businessmen and locals head determinedly for the public transport signs, eyes fixed unwaveringly on their destination and god forbid if you get in their way. There are tearful reunions happening all over the place, filling the hall with shrieks and whoops and general happiness that doesn't fit with the clinical silence that lies in the rest of the room.

The screen displaying the arrivals has long since stopped displaying the flight from San Fransico but one of its passenger is yet to move on from the arrivals hall. He can't be entirely to blame, because he doesn't know where he's going. Then again, he was the one who got on a plane to London without anything but an address that doesn't make sense to him (who puts letters in a zip code anyway?).

Stiles Stilinski wears the unmistakable look of someone who has been on a plane for a very long time. The young man, now creeping towards his 23rd birthday, has bags under his eyes, haphazard hair and a pillow under one arm. He wears a slightly faded lacrosse sweater and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that are beginning to fray at the bottom, because an intern for the FBI doesn't get paid enough to warrant new tracksuit bottoms. Food needs to come first. To be fair, his father offered to buy him some new ones. _If you're going to do this idiotic trip- don't look at me like that Stiles, it is idiotic- then you could at least dress a little better._ But Stiles wouldn't take a penny from him. He was a grown up now. Right?

Standing in the middle of the echoing hall with just a photograph, a postcode and a rucksack, Stiles didn't feel like a grown up. He feels like his six year old self who got lost in the supermarket because he saw some new skateboards and wandered away from his mother. He feels like the six year old who didn't think to ask a shop assistant for help, but instead hid in the ice cream section, demolishing a box of choc ices while he waited.

He's got to move. He's stood here too long. Someone will probably start to get suspicious. Nobody stands in an airport this long without a nefarious purpose. Although they're probably more likely to think he's homeless than a security threat. It's time to move. Time to make good on the promise he made her, and himself, thee days ago...

 _Since Stiles moved away to the big city of Washington D.C., he makes a point to come home for the big dates. Thanksgiving, Christmas, his birthday, his dad's birthday, his mum's birthday. And Lydia's birthday. He has this crazy sort of hunch that one year she'll be in Beacon Hills seeing her family and he'll find her again and somehow they'll fix whatever the hell happened between them._

 _But every year he is disappointed. Mrs Martin will open the door, look over her glasses with a sad, slightly pitying look and shake her head. "Sorry Stiles."_

 _And every year, Stiles will hand Mrs Martin a small birthday cupcake and ask the same question: "Where did she go?"_

 _And she will say the same thing: "She's not ready to tell us yet." Even her mother doesn't know. All she knows is that she's safe. Lydia tells her she's safe once a month, tells her she's happy, but won't tell her where she is. The strain of it lives in the heavy shadows hiding under Mrs Martin's eyes and every year the shadows get darker._

 _But then, on Lydia Martin's 23_ _rd_ _birthday and three days before Stiles stands in Heathrow Arrivals Hall, the routine changes. Stiles knocks at the door, Mrs Martin opens it, and then invites him in. On the kitchen counter sits a postcard with a picture of the London skyline, which Mrs Martin gestures for him to look at. He obliges, turning it over. But there is nothing much to see. There's a blurry picture of Lydia that Stiles thinks was taken back in high school, and a wobbly set of letters. When Stiles looks clueless, Lydia's mother explains, tells him that it's a London postcode and she's looked it up and...well, she stops talking then. She looks at Stiles and Stiles looks back at her they are both thinking the same thing. Who is going to go to that postcode?_

" _I'm not going to stop you, Mrs Martin. She's your daughter."_

 _But she shakes her head. "This was for you. Not me."_

" _How do you know?"_

 _She smiles, a smile that almost chases away her shadows of worry. "Because she's told me she's safe, just like normal. She didn't say come and get me."_

" _But she didn't send it to me?" Stiles is pacing a little now, fingers fumbling over each other as he tries to make sense of it all._

 _Mrs Martin laughs at that. "No, but then...she didn't send this." She points to the address part of the postcard, which Stiles is yet to look at, and he sees the Martin household address written there. But the handwriting is definitely not Lydia's and there is no name to go with it. A mystery to say the least. Just the sort of thing that, a long time ago, Stiles would have pinned on his wall and pinned a spider of web of threads from. With Lydia's help of course._

 _A mystery, and perhaps that's also an invitation. Come solve me, Stiles Stilinski. Let's see if you leaving me was worth it. Show me what you've learnt._

He couldn't ignore a challenge like that. So three days later, he stands in Heathrow Arrivals Hall with a postcard, a postcode and an old photograph. And after twenty five minutes of standing, non-plussed, Stiles picks up his pillow, secures his rucksack and takes a step closer to her.

It's taken Lydia Martin five years to master the art of cooking a perfect spaghetti bolognaise while writing a mathematical research paper but today, three days after her 23rd birthday, she thinks she has mastered it. The laptop balanced precariously on her kitchen counter is spatter-free and the paper displayed on the screen does not contain random mentions of oregano or al-dente. Meanwhile, the saucepan on the stove is bubbling moderately, just as the recipe book suggests, and is not billowing out an angry cloud of toxic-smelling smoke that caused the neighbours to ring the environmental agency round. Perfection has been achieved.

Pushing her strawberry blonde curls from her face, Lydia Martin allows herself five seconds of smugness before switching off the stove and saving the research paper. Once she's checked that her ageing laptop has decided to save this time, she crosses over the six tiles that make up the width of her kitchen and pokes her head round the next door. "I did it. Best batch yet." Her voice sounds a little more creased, a little less confident than eighteen year old Lydia who thought the world wasn't ready for her, and not the other way round. Her accent has begun to shift a little too; it's still unmistakably American, but the way she says 'yet' suggests that her five years in London have begun to take an effect.

The voice that replies is definitely not American however, although it does try sometimes. "I don't believe you." The owner of the voice is a girl who looks tiny enough to fit in a suitcase and be quite comfortable in there. A girl with strawberry blonde curls that have been tamed back into two symmetrical and perfect bunches, kept well away from a pair of deep brown eyes that are painfully familiar to her mother, especially when paired with the grin she likes to whip out every five minutes.

Her daughter is almost five. Four and eight months, but she likes to say she's 'Four and four sixths' because she has sat next to her mother doing maths for her entire life, has attended more than fourty maths lectures and likes to use numbers properly. But the fact of the matter is that it has been four years and eight months since Lydia took herself to a London hospital with nobody by her side and gave birth to her daughter. Four years and eight months since Lydia looked at her daughter and realised what it was like to feel complete, irrefutable love; realised that even though she was in a country thousands of miles away from her family and friends, she was no longer alone. Four years and eight months since Lydia Martin realised she could do anything if it meant her daughter was happy.

That wasn't to say it had been easy. Lydia had come to London with the credit card she shared with her mother and the money she had been saving for a new car. Hardly enough to raise a child. But, of course, she had managed. She had worked the shitty jobs with a baby strapped to her chest; cleaning the lecture rooms of a university that one day she would attend. All because a month into the job, daughter balanced on hip, Lydia chose to solve a professor's theorem rather than wipe it off the board. The university offered her a scholarship on the spot, though of course this didn't pay for her daughter's needs. So she kept up the cleaning, right the way through her course until she graduated and was offered a position as a paid research assistant to the university's most highly-regard maths professor.

Stiles had always said she would change the world of maths, and she intended to just that. Baby or not. And four years and eight months later, she was working her way up to having her own research team. If she could just finish this paper.

Which was why she didn't have time for her daughter's disbelief. Placing her hands on her hips, Lydia fixed her daughter with a look of affront. "Well then, Isla, you'll have to come try it and disprove me."

Isla Martin has heard this tactic before, but she allows her mother to get away with it this time. She puts down the crayon she has been using to draw with (well, draw and fiddle with...) and stands up, dusting down the gingham school dress she is currently wearing. "Did you put ketchup in?" she asks, surveying her mother with suspicion as she closes the gap between them, taking her hand and holding it tight.

Lydia rolls her eyes heavenwards. "No. I'm not putting ketchup in my sauce."

"My friend Lucy says her mummy puts ketchup in and it makes it nice." Isla always introduces Lucy as 'her friend' as if Lydia hasn't sat through seven raucuous play dates with the pair.

"I don't care. Lucy's mom can put the queen's toenails in her sauce for all I care."

This earns her a look of part disgust, and part amusement, like Isla can't decide whether to let her silly side or her mature side win. Odd, for a four year old to have a mature side but Isla has spent her childhood with her supremely sophisticated and intelligent mother, and this is completely reflected in her personality. As well as her school reports: 'Isla has a confident grasp of basic mathematical concepts, and is beginning to extend her learning well beyond her age-expected level. Isla is competent at reading and shows excellent insight when it comes to discussing the plot and characters.'

Of course, someone else is reflected in those school reports as well: 'Isla has a kind attitude towards her friends but does also have a confident grasp of sarcasm, something she should work on restraining as she continues through the school. Isla does sometimes find it dififcult to focus and often needs to take breaks from her learning, she should now work on extending her concentration span.'

Lydia finds these words painful against her skin because they're almost like ghosts, prodding at the back of her neck with imagined scenarios whispered in her ear. Scenarios where he would scoop up this little girl and press his nose against her cheek, and tell her that wrigglers always go far, and she would ask him how he knows and he would give her that maddening grin of his before whispering in her ear: 'look how far I got'. Then he would look to Lydia with those eyes of his, filled with wonder at her very existence, silently suggesting that his biggest achievement was having her by his side.

But of course Isla doesn't get that scenario. Instead, she gets her mother holding her in her arms and telling her that it's okay, that wrigglers always go far, except that when Isla asks how she knows, Lydia can't answer her. Can't talk about the father she didn't dare to tell, the boy who holds onto a little part of her heart. Isla knows her father is in America, knows he never met her, but that's all so far. She's too young to know her mother isn't as brave as she pretends to be when removing spiders from the corners of the room and monsters from under the bed. Too young to know her mother has let her down and kept the other half of her heart away from her, not through cruelty but because she can't face the idea of ruining Stiles' life when he deserves the world on a platter.

They eat their spaghetti at the kitchen table, with Isla's chin almost resting on the table because she's too proud to sit on a pile of cushions. She wants to be like her mother. Lydia eats and lets her daughter tell her about her day, about the butterfly she chased around the playground, about the maths puzzle her teacher got her to do, and about how everyone else has got their postcard back and she hasn't.

"Wait, what postcards?" Lydia brings her daughter's rambling to an end, eyebrows crinkling together in confusion.

Isla puts down her fork, using the back of her mouth to wipe away the sauce smeared there. "Miss Penny was teaching us about posting letters and we all got to send a postcard to somebody and I sent one to..." She stops, as if she's just realised what she's saying. Lydia can see little cogs clicking away in her daughter's mind, and she's pretty sure she can see the big 'ABORT' sign her brain is holding up.

"To...?"

Isla fiddles with her spaghetti, eyes fixed on her plate. She mumbles a number, not quite comprehensible. She hazards a look at her mother, and can see that it hasn't cut it. So she repeats it: "Daddy."

Lydia feels her heart quicken a little bit. But she stays calm, collected. She's had practise at this, with all their little conversations about 'Daddy' over the year. "That's a nice idea, honey. But we don't know where he lives."

Isla's head is very still, too still for her. She sucks in her cheeks, eyes darting up at the ceiling before back to the floor. She's about to get a grilling from her mother when the doorbell rings, cutting through their conversation.

Lydia heaves a sigh, putting her fork down. "If that's next door complaining about my parking again..." she mutters, which earns her a nervous giggle from Isla. She stands up, pointing a stern finger at her daughter. "I'll be back to that conversation in a moment, young lady."

Then she walks out the kitchen and down the narrow but bright hallway to the door. As she's sliding the catch off, the doorbell goes again. "Hold on, I'm coming!" she huffs, flicking the second lock and heaving the door open. "Look, I know it's-"

But she doesn't finish her sentence, her words dying in her throat. Her eyes have landed on the person standing on her doorstep and she can feel the entire world slowing down to a snail's pace. She can almost hear a nearby fly's wings vibrating, can hear her own heartbeat quickening, can hear the steady humming of next door's lawnmower.

Stiles Stilinski puts down a grubby pillow and pushes his hair away from his face, giving her that look of wonder that she has never been able to forget. He holds out a crumpled postcard and shoots her a lopsided grin. "Hello Lydia. I believe this belongs to you."


	3. Chapter Two

Lydia Martin's living room is exactly how Stiles would have imagined it to be.

He knows this because he's been sitting in it for the past ten minutes, with nothing but four walls and a window to entertain him. Upon seeing him on her doorstep, Lydia had grabbed him by the arm and propelled him into her living room. "Just...wait there," she orders him, then slams the door behind him and leaves him alone. He hears faint voices, then the front door opening and then silence. Part of him is slightly scared that she's ran away from him but he forces himself to trust her. And wait.

So that's what he's done for the past ten minutes. In that time, he has taken in the minute details of her living room and tried not to be alarmed by how well he still knows her.

The walls are a fresh, yet not lurid green. Like the canopy of a forest in the first mists of a morning. It makes the room feel cosy, but not oppressing. There is one sofa, that he currently sits on, which is grey and slightly creaky underneath, but goes perfectly with the walls. Of course. Lydia Martin is the queen of coordination after all. Even the cushions, a slightly lighter green than the walls, go perfectly. Stiles can't get his socks to match- how does she find cushions to match paint, for god's sake? A large mirror rests above a clean white wooden mantelpiece, which surrounds an ancient and clearly non-functional fireplace (it's filled with pinecones and glittering stars instead of coals). On top of the mantelpiece there is a slightly cracked shell, a solid looking wax candle and a reed scent diffuser (yes, he knows what they are) with a neatly tied green ribbon around it. In the centre of the room is a coffee table and on the coffee table is a television remote, a pencil case covered in what looks like astrological signs and a piece of paper with a child's drawing on it. The drawing is of a giant man with fuzzy red hair, big brown eyes and a big goofy smile. He's standing on the moon, and waves one stick-like arm high in the air.

As ten minutes turn to eleven, Stiles stands up. Paces across the cream carpet a few times before stopping as he catches sight of a small ball of red thread sat next to the television. He picks it up and from the small circle of untouched surface underneath he can tell nobody has picked it up for a long time (FBI, see?). "Red's for unsolved cases," he whispers, almost to himself.

But then the front door slams, surprising him so much that he drops the red thread and it rolls under the sofa. Cursing, Stiles gets onto his knees, shuffles to the sofa and proceeds to try and retrieve the ball from underneath.

Lydia comes in at this moment, of course. She halts, staring at the tracksuit-covered backside she is now getting a rather good view of. Five years can pass, but Stiles Stilinski still looks incredible in tracksuit bottoms. But she forces herself to focus. She clears her throat, and Stiles yelps, smacking his back on the coffee table in his rush to straighten up.

"Damn thing," he groans, before scrambling onto his feet as Lydia continues to look unimpressed. "I...uh...was just getting your string." He hands over the ball of thread, and she puts it back in its spot in silence before turning to face him once more.

"What are you doing here Stiles?" she asks, her voice laced with the edges of frustration. He doesn't have many chances to explain himself, he knows that.

The trouble is, she's a hugely distracting presence. Five years has done nothing but make Lydia Martin even lovelier. She holds herself with the same confidence she has always had, but now it seems softer, more mellow. She wears barely any lipstick, and her hair lies in a messy, quickly executed plait that frames her face perfectly, a face that seems to hold five years worth of difficult lessons learnt, giving her a new glow of determination and strength that makes his knees weak.

She wears a floral dress that is a little longer than the Lydia he remembers would choose, and her cardigan has a slight threadbare quality that he knows 18 year old Lydia would never have put up with, but it seems to suit her still. Then again, Stiles is pretty sure he would think Lydia looked glorious in a lumpy burlap sack.

Back to the question, though. Time to answer.

"I got the postcard," he says, gesturing to the postcard still held in her hand. "Well, your mom got the postcard and told me to come find you..."

Lydia looks at the postcard, purses her lips before sitting down on the sofa. After a second, Stiles does the same, making sure he leaves a gap between their legs. He didn't come here to make her uncomfortable.

"This...postcard. It was a mistake. Someone sent it by mistake."

Stiles quirks an eyebrow, and Lydia can see the cogs whirring in his brain, adding 2 and 2, and coming to 5. "Someone mistakenly sent a postcard with your London address to your Beacon Hills address, with an old photo of you stuck on it? Lydia that's crazy." He states these final words with his daughter's wonky grin on his face (although technically it was his grin first).

Lydia closes her eyes, scrunches up the edge of her dress with her hands and takes a deep breath. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Why you ran away five years ago?" Stiles offers and his hope is palpable. She can only imagine how maddening this has been for him and she would feel guilty if she had enough guilt left, but she's cried herself to sleep about her choices enough already.

"It's related, yes. Heavily. In fact directly."

"Gee, Lyds. Never had you down as a rambler."

The nickname that only Stiles has ever called her slips out so easily, as does the gentle teasing that he has always had time for. She looks at him and for a moment it's like there's been no time at all, and she can imagine she's on her bed at home and their chemistry or biology or history textbooks are sprawled around them and he's teasing her about her shoddy knowledge of world history while she's teasing him for his shoddy knowledge of the periodic table. It's a painful drag back to reality.

"It's a little delicate," she snaps through tightly gritted teeth because part of her wants to spit out her secret right now, just to wipe the smug grin from his face. But, no, she can't. She has to be mature.

Stiles, to gives him his credit, turns a little more serious. He sits back against the arm of the sofa, appraises her with that gentle look he saves for her. "Okay. Tell me, it's okay. I've waited five years for this. I'm ready."

Lydia doesn't think that five years will cut it. She's not sure ten would, if she's honest. Stiles is brave, kind, and so many other things, but that doesn't mean he's ready to know he's a father. Still, he has a right to know. He had a right to know a long time ago but that's her weight to bear (and boy does she bear it, heavily on her shoulders so sometimes her daughter asks her why she doesn't stand up straight).

Lydia stands and Stiles can sense that this is going to be big. This sets off a fluttering of anxiety in his chest, which in turn sets off a flurry of fiddling. His hands going to the nearby cushion, until he remembers its not his to fiddle with, so then he goes to fiddling with the edge of his sleeves. Fingers running back and forth across the puckered material, trying to find purchase, trying to find a little element of comfort. He asked for the reason, and now he's going to get it. _Don't ask the questions you can't handle_. A piece of advice given on his second week in his internship by his gruff mentor. He hadn't understand what it had meant then, but maybe now he was beginning to get it.

Lydia takes a book off the shelf in the corner. It has a purple cover with lilac butterflies etched into the material. It has a thin layer of dust on the top, suggesting it is there for piece of mind more than anything. Lydia blows away the dust and then hands the book to him. "It's hard to put into words what I did and why. It's easier to show you..." She pushes the book a little more into his hands, and Stiles can see her fingers trembling. "You need to see for yourself...need to see why I had no choice."

Stiles stares at the book, wraps his fingers around the edges and feels a heavy weight settle on his lap. He feels the sofa dip beside him as Lydia sits down again. Then he opens the book.

The pages creak like the door to an ancient building. It's not ominous, more like a sense of great importance. The book is a photo album. On the first page is a picture of Stiles and Lydia together at Senior Prom. Stiles in that goofy suit that really didn't quite fit him, Lydia in a dress that stole his breath away. _You look like you're wearing a cloud_ , he remembered saying to her, and then he had spent ten minutes trying to explain why this was a compliment.

Stiles fingers the edge of the photograph, as if he could slip his way back into the moment. Or maybe he's just stalling for time, trying to avoid the inevitable turning of the page to where the real answers lie. Of course he can't wait forever, not when Lydia's trembling breath tickles at the corners of his ears.

He turns the page.

The next photograph is of a tiny baby, with a small tuft of light hair and clenched fists and wide open eyes. The photograph below it is of Lydia, hair slicked away from a slightly clammy and pale face, holding the baby and allowing a small smile to chase away the exhaustion under her eyes. She holds the baby like it's made of china, like it's the most precious thing in the world. Next to the photo, in Lydia's handwriting, is one word: "Isla."

Lydia watches Stiles' head tilt to the side just slightly, his chest shiver and then freeze as his breath catches in the back of his throat. He turns to look at her, his eyes holding a storm of emotions. She sees panic, she sees a desperate sadness, she even sees a spark of wonder. But there's also an anger, bitter and sharp. How could you hide this from me, his eyes say, no matter how much he tries to keep that hidden.

Stiles turns the next page, then the next, then the next. All the way to the end. His eyes flick from photo to photo, greedily drinking in a child who he has not been able to see, a child who has his eyes and wears his grin with a dizzying confidence, while her nose wrinkles like Lydia's and her hair is that same burning-centre-of-the-sun red that he cannot get enough of. He feels sick, he feels joy, he feels a dreadful sorrow like he has lost someone. Someone he doesn't even know. On the last page is a slightly blurred picture of Lydia and Isla, as if their mirror-image smiles (Lydia's perfect and symmetrical as always, Isla's determinedly Stilinski) have shook the focus from the camera lens. In the background, partially blocked by the pair's heads is a fairy castle and it's only then that Stiles notices the matching mouse ears balancing on their heads. The date in the corner is two months previously. Stiles stares at it the longest; partially because he can't believe Lydia went to Disneyland without him, partially because this little girl is the girl he's going to meet (and he knows he's going to meet her now, whatever it takes) and partially because he knows this is the last page and that means he's going to have to give her a reaction any second now.

He snaps the book shut. He feels it tumbling off his lap and they both dive for the precious book, hands tangling and heads bumping. Lydia brings the album up and places it on the coffee table, one hand lingering on it for a moment as if she can soak up all those little moments again through the thick fabric cover.

Stiles stands. He needs to stand, needs to walk. Needs to do anything but speak because right now the only thing in his mind is the phrase _why didn't you tell me?_ Over and over again. He does a lap of her living room, fingers counting each other in an old and never forgotten action of comfort. He looks to her, after three laps of the room. "Why didn't you tell me?" Fuck, no that wasn't right. Another lap, and Lydia knows to respect the process, knows not to speak yet. "She's...she's mine, right?"

There is so much concern in his voice that Lydia could cry. Concern, not for her to say yes but for her to say no. He's terrified that Lydia Martin has this little girl with someone else, some other boy she found at Senior prom or the day after and, of course, he knows she would never do that to him but what if he was wrong? What if he thought he knew Lydia Martin but all along he had just been terribly deluded?

She nods mutely. He nods again, lets out a low whistle of relief that also serves to try and calm his racing heart. "Okay, okay..." He drops to the ground, right in the middle of the room. Cradles his head in his hand and entangles his fingers in his hair. If she knows him at all, next will be the anger.

When he pulls his head up, his eyes seem to glisten. This immediately makes Lydia's own eyes water and she's sitting down on the floor beside him a moment later. "I know. I know. Why didn't I tell you," she says, deciding to save him the outburst.

He sneaks one in anyway. "Then why didn't you?!" he exclaims, his voice full of complete and utter bemusement that she could do this to him. "Did you not trust me or something? Were you embarrassed to be forever connected to me? Did you think I'd abandon you? Did you really think that little of me, Lydia?" Each question slams into her chest like a punch, stealing the air right from her lungs.

She feels tears on her cheeks, rolling down at the same time that tears run down his. She's seen Stiles cry before but this seems so much worse. "No," she whispers, gulping back her tears. "No, that's not it at all!"

"Then what the hell was it?" He shouts this, not at her so much (though he certainly deserves to) but at the ceiling, like he's despairing in the very nature of the world.

"I didn't want you to have to..." she trails off, trying to find the right words among the panic and pain that is currently rolling through her mind. And to think an hour ago she was worrying about the perfect bolognaise recipe.

"Have to what?" Stiles demands.

"You were going to Washington, Stiles! You had your dream mapped out right there in front of you and I couldn't!" she screams this last word then falls, exhausted, against the edge of the sofa. "I couldn't," this time quiet, as she pushes her hair from her eyes. "Every day of your life at that school, I saw you doing stuff for other people. For me, for Scott, for Kira, for Malia...for Allison. I wanted you to finally do something entirely for yourself, to do something you were so born to do. I couldn't break that all apart just because on Senior prom I was too _stupid_..."

Stiles' anger has been chased away by Lydia's own self-hatred and he blinks, taken aback by his own sudden calm. His face softens after a moment, as he places a hand on her hand. "Lyds..." Again with the nickname, the damn nickname with it's magical powers. "You weren't stupid. I mean, it takes two to tango, right?" Lydia shoots him a look of mild irritation for such a phrase but nods mutely, inviting him to go on. He wraps his fingers around hers, feeling those familiar creases in skin that he has missed so desperately. "So it's not your stupidity to bear. It's ours. And I'm not going to let you bear it alone anymore." He gives her a small grin, igniting a cheeky glimmer in his eyes. "You have to share."

Brushing at her damp cheeks, Lydia sits back and gently tugs her hands free from his, so she can run them across the top of the photo album again. Then she stands, tugging her dress down and offering him a hand up. He takes it, eager for that connection again. When they're both standing, she appraises him with a somewhat stern look. Isla would call it the 'put your toys away' look but Stiles would call it the 'stop fiddling and listen to me Stilinski' look. So he stops fiddling with the edge of his train ticket that sticks out of his tracksuit pocket.

"This isn't a pack of pens, we're talking about Stiles. This is a child. A real life human being that for the last five years I've raised on my own, protected from the monsters, force-fed medicine to..." She trails off, and she's wearing that look of frustration that Stiles always associates with the moment before the banshee screams.

He's not afraid of that though. "I know. It won't be easy. But Lydia...look me dead in the eye and tell me you don't think this is the right thing to do, that you haven't wished she could have her Dad as well as her Mom. If you do that I'll leave, right now. I'll get back on a plane and leave you to carry on the amazing job you've done so far."

Lydia grits her teeth, and doesn't need to look at Stiles to know he's wearing self-confidence all over his face. Because he's right, and he knows it. She turns to him, heart beating in her chest because she's making a decision that will change everything for her little girl. "Would you like to meet her?"

Stiles' face lights up and she knows this is the right decision because she can see Isla in the creases of his smile, the glitter of his eyes, even the tiny wrinkle of his forehead.

"Yes. Yes I would."


	4. Chapter Three

There are three things in the world that Isla Martin despises more than anything. The first is green beans. She knows they are nutritional, but she cannot take the weird stringy texture they always end up being in her mouth. The second is Henry Trotman who sits behind her on the carpet at school, because he always tries to copy her answers (although she does find it funny when she deliberately writes the wrong answers and he copies these). And third, above all other things in the world, is her next door neighbour Mrs Partridge. Mrs Partridge is an old lady with a stiff back that Isla thinks makes a creepy cracking sound every time she bends. She wears grey clothes all the time and beady little glasses that she balances on her wrinkly nose.

Mrs Partridge believes that children are there to be seen, and not heard. She also believes that a five year old girl cannot have her own opinions on things, because she is far too small to have her own thoughts. Mrs Partridge doesn't seem to like Isla, funnily enough.

But Isla's mother had been praised on her skills at working with people since the fourth grade, and had very quickly got her neighbour on side as a potential emergency contact for childcare. It hadn't happened often; there had been one time that Isla was ill and Lydia had to go to work, and another time Lydia was ill and couldn't handle her daughter traipsing around the house without a list of activities to do (Isla did not respond well to free time). Those few times, however, had been enough to leave a permanent mark on Isla's mind, and convince her that Mrs Partridge was in fact evil. She had told her mother this and Lydia had made a solemn promise that she wouldn't leave her with the woman unless it was absolutely necessary.

So now, as she sits in Mrs Partridge's funny smelling sitting room listening to her crackly radio (Mrs Partridge believed that televisions shouldn't be watched after dinner time), Isla knows something is not right. Something to do with whoever had been at the door, with whoever had left the funny grey pillow in her hallway. It makes her tummy feel strange, like a nest of mice has set up home there and are scurrying through her intestines (Isla likes Biology).

The door slams and Isla is up on her feet instantly, snatching her stuffed octopus from the weird patterned carpet and meeting her mother halfway down the corridor. "Can we go now then?" she asks eagerly, but then has to endure the usual rubbish of her mother thanking Mrs Patridge and then being forced to say thank you herself.

Finally, they are out of the house and into the sweet fresh air of their street. Isla looks up at her mother and is concerned to see that her eyes are a little red and her cheeks have funny little tracks down them, like a snail has been slithering down her face.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

Lydia kneels down in front of her daughter, brushing a strand of face from her eyes with care. "I'm fine, sweetheart. But there's something quite important I need to tell you." Lydia has always been a firm believer in telling her daughter the truth as much as possible. She spent her childhood being afraid of why her secretly fighting parents never seemed to talk to each other properly, and that was before the whole mess with her poor grandmother started. No, Isla was never going to feel like that.

Her daughter pulls herself up straight, trying to look as grown up as she can when being the same height as a fire hydrant. "Okay Mum, tell me," she says. Her mother looks like she's going to cry again and that makes Isla panic a little, because maybe she said the wrong thing. A moment later, Isla notices that Lydia is still holding her postcard in her hand, and her little mind begins to whir. "Is this about the postcard?" she asks.

Lydia nods mutely.

"Is this about my Daddy?"

Another mute nod. Isla has never seen her mother this quiet. She looks towards their house, and she can see the faint shadow of a person in their sitting room, pacing up and down, up and down. They seem to be stuck on fast forward. She looks back to her mother and gives her a toothy grin. "My postcard worked, didn't it?"

One last final nod, but this time Lydia manages words. "Isla, this is important, okay? Yes, you're postcard worked and yes he's here but he doesn't have to be your Daddy unless you want him to be. Think of it like...the kids at school. Yes, they're in your class but that doesn't mean you have to be their friends, right?"

Isla is silent for a moment, her bottom lip sticking out just like when she's working out how to tie her shoelaces. "I understand. Can we just go inside now?"

By the time Lydia has confirmed to herself once and for all that Isla is ready for this, and she's ready for this, it's been five minutes since she left Stiles. Five minutes since she left him with a promise that she would go get their daughter, which was a lot of time to wait for one of the most important moments of your life. A lot of time to realise just how important this moment could be, and a lot of time to let the sudden change of events sink in.

Five minutes is enough time to almost have three panic attacks, to almost run out of the house, to almost call Scott, or his father, or even Scott's mother because maybe she can tell him something helpful, like what to do if a child bangs their head or cuts themselves or gets a cold. Anything that might make him somewhat more prepared for the little girl that's about to enter into his life.

He knows he shouldn't, but he keeps coming back to a quiet, raw feeling of anger that lurks at the back of his head. A sly old fox that whispers in his ear over and over again that she didn't tell him because she didn't trust him, that she didn't tell him because she didn't want to be saddled with him for the rest of her life, that she didn't tell him because it was a shame enough having a child with his genes.

He has to ignore it. He has to remind himself that Lydia Martin tried to protect him, that was all. That hiding a child from him was not that bad. That she probably just panicked and he's done worse things, like hide a murder, like stab his best friend, like almost get his dad fired. It quietens the fox, but it doesn't silence it.

The front door goes. Stiles sits down, not wanting his daughter's first impression of him to be a pacing mess of a man. But then he feels too static, too much like a statue, so he stands up again. He's somewhere between sitting and standing when the door to the living room opens and they walk in.

Stiles Stilinski is a boy who takes a lot to be stunned into silence. It has happened only a few times in his life. Like when his mother died, when Scott turned his back on him in a rainy car park, when Lydia Martin arrived at prom wearing a dress that seemed to float with the wind. Now, though, he is silent once more as he sees his daughter standing in front of him for the first time.

The pictures do not do her justice. They do not capture the way her hair strains to escape from the neat bunches her mother has brushed them into, or the way she stands almost on tiptoes as if she's preparing to launch herself into the sky. They do not capture the way this five year old holds herself as if she has already seen the world and understood how to run it, or the way she seems to fill the room despite being so small. He sees his own eyes staring back at him, but with a twinkle of Lydia's intuition loitering in the corner. He sees her fingers fiddling with the fingers of her Mother as she holds her hand and is jolted back to a memory of being five years old and doing just that with his. He is completely and utterly dumbstruck.

Lydia is silent, wanting to almost be a fly on the wall at this point. She wants to leave them to get on alone, but her maternal instinct will never let that happen. So she stays silent.

Isla breaks through the quiet first. She giggles, and Stiles thinks it sounds like a little sparrow twittering. "My Mummy says you never stopped talking but you seem really quiet to me." Her accent is British but with a proud twang of Lydia's sneaking in occasionally. "Maybe you're shy?" She giggles again, looking up to Lydia. "Are you sure he's the right person?"

This manages to pull Stiles out of his awed silence. He clears his throat, rubs at the back of his neck before stopping abruptly because this little girl is watching everything he does with an almost scientific fascination. "No, uh. I am the right person," he finally croaks and Isla lets out a small gasp of amazement.

"You sound just like I pictured you..." she whispers, letting go of Lydia's hand and taking a step forward. "But you're taller than I thought..." She sounds a little disappointed, so Stiles is instantly compelled to kneel down to be more at her level. Now he's almost eye level, he feels even more nonplussed. He has never felt such a deep feeling in his heart before, completely different from the feeling he gets for Lydia, but somehow just as important. How can he feel like this for a tiny girl he has just met?

"Isla, this is Stiles," Lydia interjects, temporarily coming to the rescue. "Stiles, this is Isla."

"Mummy, I think we both know who we are," Isla comments with another giggle, shaking her head as she turns back to Stiles. "Mummy likes to think she's the smartest," she explains in a conspiratorial whisper, before shrugging. "She is pretty smart though..."

Stiles has to laugh at that, shooting Lydia a grin. "Sounds about right..." he comments, turning his gaze back to Isla. "But you seem pretty smart to me too, kid."

Isla shrugs good-naturedly, which causes her bunches to bounce excitedly, as if they have mistaken this movement for them being freed. "I'm okay. I'm not as smart as I like to think, that's what Mrs Partridge says..."

Stiles distantly hears Lydia making a soft sound of impatience, but he ignores it for the moment. "Oh really? Who's Mrs Partridge?"

"Our smelly old neighbour. She says funny things like that, and like 'in my day children always went to bed right after supper'," Isla has done her best impression of Mrs Partridge and it causes Stiles to laugh, ducking his head and rubbing furiously at his eyes. Isla thinks she sees a tear there, and she's a little bemused by how easily she appears to be making grown ups cry today.

"Well, Mrs Partridge sounds like a bit of an idiot to me. You seem like the smartest person in the world, but don't tell your mom that," he whispers this last bit with a wink at Lydia, which causes Isla to let out another giggle, filled with appreciation.

Lydia shakes her head at this, trying not to smile because the last thing Isla needs is further fuel for her vendetta against Mrs Partridge. But she can't help the twitching at the corners of her mouth because this is what her dreams have been made of for years. Of course there are nightmares too, where Stiles goes white with rage and storms from the house with hateful words about how he never loved her anyway and he's certainly not going to love her child. She doesn't know why she would ever think Stiles would do that but she can't help remember that last fight they had five years ago where he seemed to look at her in a whole new, twisted and shadowy light. When he turned to her and said 'I never realised what a cold heart you had Lydia Martin' and those words pricked under her skin and made a home there.

But that hasn't happened and Lydia knows she can leave them to it now, give them the space they need to work out each other. She's sure that isn't what a child psychologist would recommend but she doesn't give a shit about that. So she shoots Stiles a little smile and jerks her head to the door to silently signal she'll be next door if he needs her. He barely notices it. His eyes have been magnetised to his daughter and they're not leaving her for a very long time.

In fact, Stiles barely even hears the door closing. Isla does, and glances round to check that it is her mother leaving and not someone else entering this little reunion. Her hands tangle around each other until she's sure they're alone, then they still.

"I like your drawing," Stiles says, because there's a slight anxiety settling into Isla (he doesn't know how he knows this, and it slightly terrifies him).

Isla immediately perks up, grinning as she bounds round the coffee table to collect the picture. She holds it carefully, making sure not to crease the edges. As she brings it back round to him, Stiles settles into a more comfortable position on the sofa. Isla clambers onto it and settles down beside him, passing over the picture. Her hand comes to rest naturally on his leg for a moment as she uses him as a way to push herself up onto her knees. "I drew it today, but it's not quite finished."

"Who's this guy on the moon?" Stiles asks, head tilting to the side as he looks at the stick figure waving frantically from the moon, his red hair still exploding outwards.

Isla lets out an almighty hoot of laughter, a little bit like a monkey this time. "That's not a guy!" she shrieks, "it's me!"

Stiles quirks his eyebrows, looking from the picture, to the girl, to the picture again. "What's with your hair?" he asks, distantly marvelling at how naturally their conversation seems to flow, like a river working its way through the forest.

Isla rolls his eyes heavenwards, then carefully tugs her hair from its bunches. She knows her mother will be in despair when she sees but she doesn't care because she's five years old and she wants to show her father her hair. Her strawberry blonde curls tumble out of their bunches and then obediently explode outwards, surrounding Isla's beaming face with a halo of hair. "See?"

Stiles nods slowly, then grins. "Well in that case, I like this picture even more."

Isla sniggers, expertly pushing the curls behind each of her ears. "I'm on the moon because I want to be an astronaut." She points out the window, arching her back over the sofa to angle her finger directly up at the sky. "I want to be the first person to visit every planet. And the sun. And maybe even Pluto, if there's time." She slides back to sit beside him, eyes fixed on her newly acquired father with a piercing intelligence that he never expected a five year old to possess. "Pluto's not a planet anymore, but I still think it would be fun to visit."

Isla pauses then, looking at her father with a quiet curiosity. He has this look on his face like he has seen a great big lollipop, or the most amazing cuddly toy. Or a brand new science kit. A look of huge excitement, like he's about to burst. She finds it hugely amusing, and laughs slightly. When she's finished chuckling, she wriggles again until she's in a more comfortable position; this time she's sitting on the edge of the sofa arm, which she knows makes her mother incredibly nervous. But Stiles wriggles as well, until he's sitting on the opposite sofa arm, mirroring her position exactly, right down to his chin resting on his hands.

"What job do you do?" Isla asks, looking at her father with those big brown eyes, like two chocolate buttons.

Stiles wonders if this is what his father feels when he looks at him, like this feeling that your heart might be about to just give up beating because there's no way it can contain this amount of love. It's different to Lydia. He wonders if he feels like he would burn the entire planet down if it would just keep her safe, or like a little bit of the darkness inside his head has been chased out with the torchlight of her little laugh.

Isla clears her throat, pulling him from his reverie. "Uh, sorry," he laughs, shaking his head to clear away the thoughts. "I'm learning to be a detective."

The chocolate button eyes expand even wider, and Isla slides off the arm of the sofa to shuffle closer to him. "A detective?" she repeats. "You catch bad people?"

Stiles shrugs, his grin as wonky as hers. "I try. I haven't started yet. I've been learning."

"Like Mum is learning to be a maths genius."

Stiles holds up one finger and wags it with a grin. "Wrong, your mum is already a maths genius. She's just letting everyone catch up with her."

Isla nods slowly, smirking as if they have just shared a little secret. Then she jumps off the sofa, steadying herself on the slightly slippery wooden floor before dashing to the bookshelf. She tugs off a large blue box from the bottom shelf and carries it over to their sofa. "This is my pretend box. For letting me pretend." She opens it, revealing a neatly folded lab coat, among other dressing up items. She roots through and pulls out a slightly crinkled superhero cape. "I don't have a detective costume. But you're a little like a superhero. So you can have that one." She passes him the cape without giving him a chance to answer. Then she pulls out the lab coat, tugging it on and rolling up the sleeves. It goes all the way to the ground, because it's actually a grown up one that Lydia 'acquired' from work.

Grabbing her pencil case from the coffee table, Isla watches as Stiles carefully ties the cape around his shoulders, not needing any coercion when it comes to dressing up with his daughter. Once she has deemed her father appropriately ready, she hands him the pad of paper. "Okay Detective. We've had a serious break in, and we need your help." She looks over to the octopus toy that lies discarded on the floor. "Tentacles, you keep watch while we examine the crime scene."

Stiles takes the pad, grinning as he stands up. "Okay Dr Isla-"

"Professor," Isla corrects with a stern look.

"Professor Isla. Sorry. Follow me, we've found some clues..."

The game goes on for an hour, until Lydia comes to check on them and finds the pair sprawled out on the floor surrounded by sheets of paper with various scribbled drawings that she cannot begin to understand. The sight of Stiles and her daughter lying in identical poses on the floor with identical thoughtful expressions on their face is enough to make her cry all over again, but she manages to brush away the tears before they notice her. It's a little difficult having to break up the fully immersed pair but bath time and bedtime and real life calls.

Stiles watches from the floor as Isla pouts but then rolls out of her labcoat, folding it up neatly in a way that only Lydia Martin's daughter would. Then he stands, taking off his cape and folding it up as well, because he has a funny feeling that Isla would cremate him if he didn't. "I should, I should get out of your hair," he says as Isla takes the cape and puts in back in the box.

Lydia wraps her arms around herself, trying to work out where they stand with each other right now, because this is a whole new territory, a whole new world of ifs and buts.

"You can stay if you want to, it's no trouble..."

Stiles shakes his head, hands sliding into his pocket. "No, it's fine, really. I've got to find a hotel, I haven't slept in at least...I'm not even sure," he laughs. He can see a slight twinkle of disappointment in her eyes and he realises he might not have been as clear as he wanted to be. He steps forward, placing an awkward hand on her arm. "I'd like to come back though. Soon. I mean, if you'd like me to?"

Lydia nods immediately, not caring if she looks ridiculously keen because she's a grown woman now, who is very much done with playing high school games. "Yeah, we'd like that. Right, Isla?" she asks, wrapping an arm around Isla's twitchy little shoulders. The girl nods rapidly, her grin stretching ear to ear.

"Tomorrow!" Isla blurts out a moment later. "You can come to my ballet class."

"Only if you want to." Lydia adds in hurriedly, because the last thing she wants is to scare this boy who she has just got back into her life.

Stiles rests a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing it as he gives the two girls a small grin. "Ballet, right. I am there. I mean, I don't know anything about ballet but I am so there."

Lydia smirks, absent-mindedly pulling her daughter's curls into a ponytail. Once she's calmed her hair down, she gives her daughter a gentle tap on the shoulder. "Go start running your bath, okay? I'll be up in a minute. Say goodbye to Stiles," she prompts, as she nudges her forward.

Isla looks like she might argue but then decides that today is not the day to argue with her mother about the appropriate time for washing. She steps forward and offers Stiles a hand. "Detective Stilinski," she says formally, and Stiles shakes his hand with a grin.

"Professor Isla. Until next time, sparky," he laughs, before letting out a slight noise of surprise as Isla hugs his legs.

"Thanks for getting my postcard," she whispers into his trousers. Then she's gone, whirling away from the pair and out the room like a mini tornado. The door shuts behind her and the room seems a little smaller. Lydia stands in front of Stiles with one foot curled around the other. Watching him with a little proud smile as if to say 'look what I did'. And she's right to be proud, when she's brought up a daughter to be so polite, so intelligent, so determined.

"Lydia, she's perfect," Stiles says, as he puts his shoes back on (at some point Detective Stilinski threw them off).

Lydia smiles and while it's only small, it carries a lot of weight. A gentle yet oh so powerful pride because she's achieved so much, but nothing will make her prouder than her daughter. Her fierce and beautiful little girl who sees the world for everything it can possibly be, and should be. She moves to open the sitting room door, leading him out. "I know she is," she replies, with a humble little shrug. "She came into the world that way, I didn't have much to do with it."

Stiles heaves his rucksack onto his back and tucks his pillow under his arm. Then he tugs her into a hug. Lydia closes her eyes because she has forgotten how safe she feels in Stiles Stilinski's arms, how he always smells like apples and cinnamon and how he always feels like home. She can feel his heart beating, can feel the way his hand seems to cover her entire back, can feel his breath tickling the top of her hair.

He pulls away far too soon for her liking, and places a hand on the side of her head, feeling her hair beneath his fingers. Then he steps back. "What time is this ballet then?" he asks with an expression of mild amusement at the fact that this sentence is now an acceptable thing to say.

"It's 4. But meet me here at 3:30 and we'll walk over together, saves you getting lost."

Stiles nods, hesitating before pressing a brief kiss to her cheek. "I'm so glad I found you," he murmurs, then heads for the door. Lydia finds it hard to move for a moment because she's forgotten that Stiles says these earth-shattering statements as if he's reading a shopping list. She has forgotten how his love for her is utterly interwoven into his very existence, and that he doesn't realise how the things he says can cause her heart to stumble.

But she pulls herself together, and follows him to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, Stiles," she replies, inwardly cursing herself for not being able to return his sentiment somehow. The words don't come naturally to her, because she's still learning. Five years on and she's still learning that she's allowed to let herself love him.

He doesn't seem disappointed, though. He waves one last time as he walks down her crooked front path, shooting that topsy-turvy grin back her way once more before he turns and stumbles off down the street.

For a moment, Lydia rests against the doorframe and lets this quiet feeling of hope settle into her skin. It feels like the warmth of the summer sun. She could stand on the doorstep all evening, feeling that tingle against her skin but she can hear her daughter singing out of tune Disney songs which means she won't be paying attention to the bath water. Life calls to her so she allows herself one more second, before closing the door and going to find her daughter.


	5. Chapter Four

(( _So I'm sorry for the delay in updating! I've been back to work this week which meant I've had much less free time and very little energy! This is just a short little update, which will hopefully lead into a more substantial update over the weekend!))_

Stiles' hotel room smells of cheap air freshener and is just about big enough for the creaky bed to fit in without touching the walls. It has a view of the back of a takeaway shop, complete with smoke-belching air vent, and a toilet with a set of disco-flickering lights. All in all, it's not going to be winning any awards soon. On the bright side, it's not in the middle of California and not famed for it's high number of suicides. It's survivable.

And, of course, the state of the room is hardly at the forefront of Stiles Stilinski's concerns right now. He has a daughter. His bed could be made of nails and the floor could be on fire, and he would still find it hard to drag his eyes away from the postcard in his hand. Like a magnet, like if he holds this postcard long enough he'll conjure Isla Martin in front of him. He has a daughter.

And he already misses her. It's been just over two hours since he left Lydia's house, just over two hours since he saw the love of his life and then realised it was possible to utterly adore more than one person. Two hours since his heart expanded to make space for this tiny impossibly perfect child, and he feels like he's going crazy. He wonders if this is what it feels like to be addicted. His hands twitch as they fiddle with the frayed edges of the postcard, tremble slightly as he fights against this new, powerful urge to run from this hotel room and return to the little terraced house on the street with the fluttering cherry blossom trees. He's left something in that house, and he needs to get it back or he'll go mad, he knows it.

His phone rings. A sharp interruption to his frantic daze, wriggling into his consciousness. Stiles jumps up, hands fluttering over the pile of crap that he's upended from his rucksack. He sets aside passport, crumpled plane tickets, until he finally roots out his phone.

"Yep?" he replies, not having time to check the caller ID.

"Stiles, it's me." Scott's voice is crackly from the distant connection but is unmistakable nonetheless. It sounds like the slamming of high school lockers, the thud of lacrosse sticks on dew-soaked grass (and the spattering of rain in a car park and the pleading one friend asking another to belive him). It sounds like home and Stiles finds himself relaxing against the bed, sliding down to sit on the floor.

"Hey, how did it go?"

Scott's been sitting his college finals and from the texts (and the repeated use of the shotgun and skull emoji) they haven't been too pleasant. This idea is confirmed by the long sigh that rattles down the speaker. "The less said, the better. Did you find her?" Scott's voice is full of eagerness, and also a gentle concern that he tries to keep hidden. He's watched Stiles build up this wall around his heart, made up of lies that he doesn't care about Lydia anymore, and he's scared that this trip is going to send that wall crushing down.

"Yeah, I did."

"And?"

Stiles pauses, mulling over how best to drop the almighty bombshell he has been handed. He has been drifting in this haze of joy that is the sound of Isla's laugh and the twinkle of her eyes, but Scott's 'and?', blunt and to the point, is blowing that haze away. There's a tentative edge to the 'and?', sowing a seed of doubt in Stiles' mind. Maybe he's crazy, maybe he's taken this all far too well?

"Stiles...you there, buddy?"

He's dawdling now, and Scott's voice has a sense of anxiety to it. He's getting ideas already that this is a bad thing, and Stiles doesn't want that. So he forces the words out of his mouth, even though it feels like he's trying to pull mashed potato up a hill.

"It was a baby."

"What?"

"She had a baby. She ran away because she, uh, had a baby. My baby." Stiles wants to get this part in before Scott can ask, because Stiles wants to pretend to himself that there would be no doubt in anyone's mind about whose baby it would be.

Scott is silent for a moment. Then Stiles hears him whispering to someone in the background. _Mom,it was a baby...Well who else is it going to belong to?_ Then he returns to his phone. "Wow, dude. That's...that's crazy."

"Thanks for summing that up." Stiles' sarcasm muscle flexes, stretching out as much as it can in the titchy hotel room.

"Are you okay?" Scott asks, ignoring the sarcasm with the ease of someone who has grown up with it.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm more than okay. It's...she's...she's perfect."

"You met her?" Stiles can almost imagine how big Scott's eyes are getting.

"Isla. She's called Isla," Stiles' hand comes to rub at the back of his neck because he has this prickling sensation, this terrifying fear that Scott might let out a low sigh and tell him that he's not worth this child, that he has to turn away from Isla before he ruins her somehow.

Scott does the opposite though, but it's not necessarily a good thing. There's a pause, delicate as china. Stiles knows Scott is carefully sculpting his next words. "What did you say to her- uh, Lydia?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean- Stiles, she hid your child from you for five years. I know you feel a lot for her, but she's hidden something huge from you. This isn't a little thing like ignoring you in school...this is huge. A child, Stiles. A real life kid!"

"Yes, I get it." Stiles' voice snaps down the connection. His heart is beginning to speed up and he can feel the fluttering wings of anxiety beginning in his chest. He has been so enchanted by Isla that he's allowed the reality of Lydia's actions to slip by for the moment, but now he can feel Scott's judgement burning through the phone.

"So what did you say?"

Stiles' teeth worry at his lips, breaking at the already cracked skin. "I told her not to worry. I told her I was going to be there for her." Scott murmurs something to his mother in the background, indistinguishable this time. But it causes Melissa Mccall to let out a gentle snort.

A second later, he's back: "Stiles, you need to speak to her. You need to be...Well, you need to be careful. Lydia's great and all but...but she knows you love her."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that she knows she could go with you with pretty much anything and you'd agree to it. I mean, if Lydia Martin asked you to kill someone, I'm sure you'd do it."

A slight twinge of something prods Stiles' mind. The echo of a memory, the ghost of an impaled chimera staring at him from the shadows of a library. I'm sure you'd do it, Stiles, because you've done it before. They've put that behind them now, but it's impossible to bury something as tectonic plate-shifting as that was. Donovan will always sit between them, a silent ghost.

"She didn't ask me Scott. Five years she didn't ask me, and she didn't tell me to come. Isla did. So Lydia isn't after anything from me...I'm more the one trying to get something."

"I'm just trying to keep you safe, man."

"I don't _need_ protection from Lydia."

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you shouldn't make a decision about anything until you have had plenty of time to think about it."

"You need to see her, Scott. You need to see Isla. There's nothing to think about."

Scott can obviously sense how pointless this fight is, because he now makes a heavy sound of defeat. Then there's the muffled sound of his mother again, and Scott mumbles a response before turning back to the conversation one last time. "Mom says you need to send a photo."

"I will."

Scott hesitates, finding Stiles' short reply a little unnerving. And Stiles knows he's not being himself but Isla has stolen his ramblings. "When are you coming home?"

"I don't know, I need to work things out here first. There's a lot to do, you know?"

The rest of the phone call floats by in meaningless exchanges of dates and logistics that Stiles barely listens to. He's too wrapped up in Scott's words from earlier to really concentrate on the present. Then suddenly they're saying goodbye and he's left alone in his boxy little room with nothing but the small dark fox of his thoughts, curling up in the corner of his mind.

The silence doesn't last long. The fox rears its head and speaks, whispering in his ear like it always does. _Scott's right, you know he is. She's playing you like the fool you are. She doesn't love you, she just loves your babysitting skills, your bank balance._

Stiles wants to think that he doesn't care, that no matter what happens he will love them both and take care of them. But what if Scott is right? What if Lydia was never planning on him coming but now that he has, she's planning on milking him from everything he's got? She wouldn't.

 _She would._

Stiles stands up, paces around the room. He finds that pacing in this tiny room doesn't really help and his head is getting so full of short, ugly thoughts that he feels his heart sputter, race; feels his lungs squeezing and before he knows it, he's on the floor and in the deep throes of a panic attack. He feels like he's going to die, like this is it and in the morning some angry cleaner will burst into his room and find him dead on the floor. He closes his eyes, squeezes them tight until he thinks that maybe they're going to explode.

Then he pictures her. He pictures Isla and her bouncing hair and those twinkly eyes, and the way she stands on her tiptoes when she's telling him something really interesting. But it's not enough, because then all he can see is tears in her eyes as he somehow lets her down. He can't get it out of his head; a worry about Lydia tricking him has turned into a worry that she's not, that she's truly hoping he is going to be a shining new light in his life, and he is going to be anything but.

He can't do that to her. He doesn't deserve them, he's a murderer, he's void, he's a panicking mess and he's going to ruin her.

He can't.

And so it comes to pass that the next day dawns and the moment arrives for Isla's ballet concert and Stiles Stilinski is nowhere to be seen.


	6. Chapter Five

The North Islington Community hall is filled with the harmonious sounds of Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy'. It floats from the small iPod speakers set up in the corner, over the heads of the rows of proud parents, and into the dusty corners of the hall, filling every inch of the place with twinkling notes and calming melodies. The room is dark, the only light coming from the spotlights set on the stage and the recording lights of dozens of camera phones in the audience.

On stage, fifteen little girls and four little boys stand in a wobbly version of a straight line, carefully cleaned ballet shoes balancing on the white marking on the floor. Second from the back, ginger curls scraped back with all the hair gel in the world, is Isla. She twists her fingers around the slightly frayed edges of her tutu, rocking back and forth on her ankles as she gazes out into the audience, trying to spot her parents (and loving the newly acquired plural to that word). But the spotlights are too bright, and all she can see in the audience is shadows and red recording lights.

It's a good thing too. Because if Isla could see into the audience, she would probably find her desire to perform ballet decreasing dramatically. It's a good thing she can't see her mother sitting on her own at the back of the room, shoulders rigidly held up high like there's puppet strings pulling them up. It's a good thing she can't see the empty chair next to her mother, or the way Lydia grips her phone like it's a lifeline. It's a good thing she can't see how Stiles is conspicuous only in his absent, or otherwise she would probably refuse to dance right there and then.

The music builds and the dance begins. Lydia watches Isla grace the stage like she was born on it, and the burning worry in her mind temporarily shifts to the side as the fierce love she feels for her daughter takes over. Isla bounds across the stage like a deer prancing across a field. And no, she's not really following along with the dance she has been taught in class and yes, she does almost bump into her classmates half a dozen times, but she looks so happy and that's all Lydia cares about. She could dance forever, that's clear.

But the music comes to and end and the children bow neatly, and the show comes to a glorious finish. And still, there is no sign of Stiles. Any moment now Isla will rush out from backstage and look into the audience and see that her brand new father has let her down.

The main lights turn back on and the parents begin to stand, gathering their belongings and waiting patiently for their little darlings to emerge, triumphant. Lydia stands as well, coat held against her chest as if it might hold some comfort.

Behind her, she hears the door creak open and her head whips round. It's him. He looks like hell. London has been covered in its usual downpour of rain and it has slicked his hair to his face, and caused his clothes to stick to him in odd places. His expression is one of someone who is doing everything possible in his power to hold it together. She's seen this look before; in a locker room seconds before she kissed him for the first time, in the basement of Eichen House with her grandmother's dying words echoing around them. But this time she has no time for it, not when her daughter is due any second.

She squares her shoulders, marches over to him. "Where the hell have you been?" she hisses, then holds up a hand to stop any excuses about to pour from his mouth. "No, don't bother. I don't care what you have to say because there could be nothing in the world that will excuse this. All I care about right now is that Isla doesn't know that you let her down first try. So you tell her how great the show was, and how she was the best damn sugar plum fairy out there or so help me, Stilinski, I will send you back to California in pieces!"

Stiles opens his mouth, shuts it, gasping for air and scrabbling around for a response. But he doesn't get a chance. Isla's distinctive shriek of excitement fills the hall and the pair turn to see the little girl bouncing towards them. "You're here! You saw it!" she exclaims, running at Stiles' legs and hugging them with such ferocity that he almost falls over.

Stiles opens his mouth to correct her, but then he sees the burning gaze of a furious Lydia Martin out of the corner of his eyes, and decides that sometimes a lie really is the best way forward. So he forces a smile, hugging her gently. "I'm here...You were great, amazing. The best out there." Technically not a lie- he didn't see her, but he can guess that she was amazing and the best out there. Why wouldn't she be?

Isla pulls back, jumping from one foot to the other with a grin. "Was I really? My teacher always tells me off for not listening but I just like to dance all the time!" she giggled, and her eyes seem to gleam with the light of her excitement.

She looks to her mother, and notices the way her face has reddened, just towards the corners of her eyes. Eyes that are just a little narrowed. It makes Isla a little uncertain, because she's sure that's the look her mother wears when she's angry. But then it's gone and Lydia is all smiles, taking her ballet bag and gathering her into a tight hug. "You were perfect, sweetheart. You're always perfect."

Then Lydia straightens up again, holding Isla gently against the side of her legs. Her eyes turn to Stiles who, to give him his credit (not that she currently thinks he deserves any), is trying his best to look normal. "Well, it was good of you to come, Stiles. But we should really get back home, it's a school night after all..." She knows her voice has a bite to it, and she knows her perceptive daughter is probably going to notice it, but she can't keep this amount of rage inside. Why has he done this to them, why has he let her down so quickly? She really thought that he loved her, loved them.

Stiles nods at her words, accepting his punishment with grace. Maybe he thinks he deserves it. Good, he does. Lydia may be a grown up but bitterness is a long-living condition.

Isla, however, is having none of it. She scowls, breaking away from her mother's side. "He can't go! I haven't spoken to him at all! Can't he come for dinner? It's not fair!" She glares at both Lydia and Stiles, hands on her hips.

Stiles looks helplessly to Lydia, because he's not got any reason to disagree with Isla. He wants desperately to stay, even if it means sitting with a severely peeved Lydia Martin. Isla's mother purses her lips, refusing to look at Stiles because she doesn't want him to think she's making this decision for _him._

"Okay, fine," she relents. "He can come for dinner but then I don't want to hear a single peep from you at bedtime, understood?"

Isla nods her head rapidly, then looks to Stiles. "Can you come, Stiles? Oh please say you can!" she exclaims.

"It would be my pleasure, munchkin," he replies without hesitation, and Lydia can't help but look at him with bemusement. He's late to the show but now he's ready to spend the evening with her? It makes no sense and for the first time in her life, Lydia wishes Isla was not there, just so she could demand to know what's going on.

But Isla is very much present, so she has to settle for a brisk nod. She offers her hand to Isla but the little girl is more interested in holding Stiles', which doesn't really improve her mood. Her daughter prefers the man who couldn't even get himself here on time, great. Of course, she knows that Isla is unaware that Stiles has missed her concert but her bubbling resentment is making her irrational.

She walks back home in almost silence, allowing the other two to chatter away. Well, mainly Isla chatters away and Stiles makes appropriate noises at the right time. When they finally reach their house and Lydia lets them in, Isla races down the hall. "I HAVE TO GO THE TOILET, I'M DESPERATE!" she bellows back as an explanation, thundering up the stairs and disappearing. The bathroom door slams shut a moment later.

"She always slams the damn door, those poor hinges," Lydia whispers to herself, mainly to delay the inevitable hushed conversation that is about to ensue.

Stiles smiles, and there's an understanding glint there. Lydia bristles then; she doesn't want his understanding, because she's not on his side. She's furious with him. So she turns and marches into the kitchen, sensing Stiles trailing after her like a kicked puppy.

"Lydia, I can explain-"

Lydia rounds on him, and her expression is cold, like someone has placed ice cubes in her eyes. "Really? Can you? Because short of a _fucking_ hurricane knocking you out for half an hour, there's nothing that is going to explain this." Her voice is hushed, but the venom is all too clear.

Stiles balks, stumbling back. He's forgotten this. He's forgotten how Lydia can turn on someone like a starving lioness coming across a wildebeest.

"Well?" she spits, after Stiles splutters at her for a few seconds.

"I freaked out," he mumbles, scratching at the back of his head. "I was speaking to Scott and he was asking me all these questions-"

"Oh, so it's Scott's fault, is it?"

"You didn't let me finish." Stiles snaps, finding his barbs now and bristling them. "He was asking me all these questions and then I was sitting in this stupid tiny hotel room thinking about how this might be the worst thing I could ever do to you. I mean, I don't know anything about children! What if I screw this up? What if I screw her up?" He gulps in a deep breath, calming himself down. "I freaked out, and I'm sorry. I really am, but I'm here now. And I'm not leaving." He steps forward, reaching for her hands.

But Lydia isn't so easily mollified. She snatches her hands up to her chest, takes a step back. "You said that yesterday. You said you were going to be here for us and the first opportunity you have to prove this, you let us down." She takes a step forward, a finger pointed like a dagger at his chest. "This isn't you missing a study session, Stiles. This is a little girl, _my_ little girl and I will impale anybody who does the smallest thing that might hurt her." Her eyes are alight with fire, and Stiles has never seen such ferocity there before. The mother bear has found a home in her soul, and is now rearing it's head.

Understandably, Stiles is silenced. Well, at least for a few seconds (Stiles is never mute for long after all). But when he does speak, his voice is softer, a little broken. "I understand. I'm sorry. And if you want me to leave right now, then I will but..." his voice creaks like a harsh wind is blowing through it, "please don't make me leave. I know it's been a day but...I think I might die without her."

He's not saying this to try and calm her down, she can tell. Stiles has that look of unabashed adoration in his eyez that has usually been reserved for only her, and now he's got it for their daughter. Lydia knows she shouldn't be softened by one look but she can't help it. Stiles is her one big weakness, especially when those cocoa powder eyes are filled with such desperation.

Stiles watches the hardness in her expression disappear and then hears the soft sigh as she gives in, just a little. "I know it's been a day...but that's what it's like," she murmurs. " it took me five seconds to fall in love with her."

She sits down at the table, presses her fingers gently to her temples. She can hear the water running upstairs, knows that Isla won't be long now and she knows that she must make her decision before then. "Stiles, I can tell you care about her and I can tell you want to be there for her but you have to decide now, right now, that you're going to be here permanently for her. And that decision needs to be final. No backing out, no matter what Scott says, what your Dad says- hell, what the damn newspapers say. You choose to be part of her life, you choose to be part of her life. Period."

The whole room seems to be filled with a buzzing of anticipation, as if the world can sense how important this moment is. Two paths sit in front of Stiles now, he can feel it. But one path is dark and lonely, even if it does seem to run straight. The other one, while full of steep mountains and treacherous bends, has a lightness to it. And only one path has room for a shadowy fox on it, and that makes all the difference.

"I'm here for you. I promise."

Lydia looks at him, searches for any sort of cracks in his expression that would suggest he doesn't know what he's agreeing to. She can't see any. A few little hairline creases perhaps, but she can't expect him to be completely confident, she supposes. She nods, and she's going to say something else, something probably heartfelt and poetic. But she doesn't get a chance, as Isla explodes back into the room, her ballet clothes significantly more rumpled now she's been left to her own devices for more than two minutes.

She watches Stiles and Lydia both stand up abruptly, looking like two people who have just been caught sneaking biscuits from the biscuit cupboard (she knows this from experience). It causes a little giggle to sputter from her mouth. "Were you two kissing?" she asks, hands coming to rest on her hips.

Whatever Lydia was expecting, it certainly wasn't that. Much to her utter irritation, she feels her cheeks heating up.

Stiles comes to the rescue, seemingly unflappable when it comes to his daughter. "Yup. Lots of big sloppy kisses," he replies with a wink.

Isla executes an almost perfect 360 degree eyeroll. "That's a lie," she giggles. "Mummy wouldn't do big sloppy kisses to you."

"No?" Stiles is grinning, so enthralled with his daughter's mirth that he doesn't notice the slight tightening of Lydia's jaw.

"Nope. She only gives big sloppy kisses to Michael!"

The entire room seems to shift, like the Earth has been knocked off its orbit. Silence settles, even Isla seems to notice that she has said something that has changed the entire atmosphere. Lydia picks at the corner of her dress, teeth worrying at her bottom lip, waiting for the inevitable.

And it comes a second later, in a voice filled with quiet betrayal.

"Who's Michael?"


End file.
